The Bizarre World of Florida

DUI = Man thought cigarettes were his cell phone August 22, 2012

When a deputy dispatched to an accident had asked Joseph Jeffrey Holliday, 25, about the crash that he had just been involved in, Holliday told the deputy that he did not wish to say anything without first talking to his lawyer, according to a Manatee County Sheriff’s Office arrest affidavit.

When the deputy then asked the Tampa man, who had been sitting down, to get on his feet, he reportedly “almost fell over.”

At some point, when Holliday attempted to call someone, he held his cigarettes, thinking they were a cell phone, the affidavit stated.

Holliday refused to perform field sobriety tests and a breath test.

But, while in the back seat of the patrol car, he uttered some incriminating evidence, spontaneously saying “you shouldn’t drink when you go out. If I would have been sober I wouldn’t be in handcuffs right now,” according to the affidavit.